Thank you to everyone who supported the PTA's first annual Rock, Paper, Soiree. We raised close to $5,000 for our Playworks program!

Kindergarten 2015

If your child will be 5 by September 1, 2015, and you live in the Vestal neighborhood, you can register for Kindergarten now. Stop into our Main Office for more information. We will have our next Kindergarten Connect event on May 28th @ 5:30 pm. Come whether you have already registered or not--we will be doing a Scavenger Hunt of the school and providing pizza and games for incoming kindergarten students.

SUN HAS BEGUN!

This week, we started our first official SUN After School Session!! Classes range from LEGO friends to gaming strategies to marimbas. Over 100 of our K-8 students are now participating in after school classes. There are even some classes being offered to adults (pilates and bike repair). See pictures below of some of our 3rd-5th grade students in a Zoo animal education class.

Winter Show

Thank you to all of the teachers and students that contributed to a spectacular Winter Show! See our new Strings Orchestra led by Music Teacher Marian Herrmann in the picture below.

Author Visit

Thank you, Mr. Steinke (Vestal 2nd grade teacher) for sharing your author story with our students! On December 11th, all K-8 students got to hear Mr. Steinke talk about how he became a cartoonist, hear/view excerpts from his published books, and learn about the process through which books and comics are made.

Winter Craft Night

The PTA's annual Winter Craft Night is next week--Friday, December 12th. Join us for painting, sculpting, crafting, snacks and fun!!

Family Literacy Night

Thank you to Mrs. F-B, Multnomah County Libraries, and Reading Results for helping us with Family Literacy Night on December 4th. We had a great turnout--parents got to learn a lot about home reading, students enjoyed making bookmarks in their PJs, and we all enjoyed snuggling together for an engaging read aloud.

Oregon Battle of the Books

Oregon Battle of the Books teams for grades 3-5 and grades 6-8 are
forming now! For more information, parents can go to this page:

Vestal Media Specialist Erin Fitzpatrick-Bjorn can also answer questions. Contracts are due December 15th.

Thank You Banfield Pet Hospital!

This November, our friends at the Banfield Pet Hospital came to do a community service day at Vestal. In one morning, they re-painted two of our primary bathrooms to make the rooms more welcoming to our youngest students. We thank them for their time and labor!!

Free Breakfast & Lunch For All

This year, Vestal is thrilled to be participating in a new federal program that will allow all Vestal students to eat both BREAKFAST and LUNCH for FREE every day!

Vestal is a SUN Community School!!

Thanks for the support and advocacy of our community, Vestal has now been named a SUN Community School. We will be introducing our new SUN Site Manager and Americorps member to the community this fall and will be conducting a community needs assessment to determine which types of programming will most support our students and families. Official SUN after school programming will begin this winter. Expect to hear more information soon!

Classroom Highlights

SCIENCE

See Mr. Blanchard's 4th grade students working with Mrs. Thompson on a lesson that brings Erosion to life!

RIGHT BRAIN RESIDENT ARTIST

This month and next, all Vestal students are getting to work with resident artist Sarah Ferguson to mold and glaze ceramic petals and portraits. This spring, our hope is to mount our students' sunflower portraits on the exterior of our building. See Mr. Steinke's 2nd grade students and one of our 8th grade engaged in ceramics below:

SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR

The PTA and our Media Specialist Mrs. F-B hosted a Scholastic Book Fair in the Library during the 1st week of November. To celebrate the Book Fair, Clifford came to visit:

OUTDOOR SCHOOL

Our 6th graders are off to Outdoor School! This picture shows Mrs. Finke's class boarding the bus for a two-night/three-day experiential science/nature trip at Camp Howard. What a great hands-on learning experience and community-building opportunity for all of our 6th graders.

LEGO ROBOTICS

On Saturday, December 7th, Mr. Lind & Ms. Oesterle took 8 students to compete in the First Lego League tournament in Hillsboro. We didn't win, but we had a great time and learned a lot!!

On Friday, November 8th, Mr. Lind took our LEGO Robotics team on a field trip to the OSU Waves and Robotics Lab.

ADOPT A CLASS

Volunteers from Unitus visited their little buddies in Mrs. Thompson's 3rd grade class before Halloween to carve pumpkins and do Halloween crafts.

READING EXTENSIONS

Mrs. Biello's 2nd grade class goes "camping" in the classroom (an activity aligned with their Reading Street story on camping).

Letter From the Principal

August 2014

Dear Vestal families & community,

I want to welcome you back to
what I think is going to be a very exciting year at Vestal! I am thrilled to be
back for a second year with your children—I’ve missed them over the summer! This
year, we are welcoming several new faculty members and programs to the
building. I feel confident that these new additions will give us a tremendous
boost toward our constant mission of academic excellence and positive
citizenship for all students. Here is a quick summary of what is new and exciting at Vestal this year:

·Schools
Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) Community School Program: At long-last, Vestal has finally been named a SUN
Community School! This fall, we will introduce to you our new full-time SUN
Site Manager. Registration for our first session of SUN programs will begin in
late fall and official programming will begin in the winter. This fall, we will be reaching out to gather information from all of our stakeholders to inform the development of Vestal SUN. We look forward to all of the programming and community connections
that SUN will bring to Vestal!

·Playworks: We are pleased to be partnering with Playworks for
the first time this year. Playworks will assign a full-time coach to Vestal.
The job of the coach will be to help students engage in structured, inclusive,
cooperative games at recess-time. The coach will also meet with classes
throughout the week for Game Time and will run an after school Junior Coach
program. Expect to hear your students talking about the new Playworks coach
this fall!

·AVID
Elementary: As many of you know,
Vestal has had a strong middle school AVID program for years. This year, we are
pleased to be introducing AVID Elementary. We will be implementing AVID
strategies including daily planners, binders, critical reading strategies, and
note-taking in 4th and 5th grade this year. Our hope is
that this early boost will get students ready to be well-organized critical
thinkers as they move toward middle school.

·Family
Resource Center: This year, the
PTA will be opening a new Family Resource Center in Portable 2. The intent of
this space is to give families a place to come together, access resources and
technology, meet with translators, and engage in new ways with the Vestal
community.

·Building
Security: To ensure a safe and
protected learning environment for all students, we will be moving all homeroom
classes into a fully-secured building this year. During the school day, all
building entrances will remain locked. Visitors will need to buzz into the
building at the Everett Street door and the office will be able to view and
record who is entering the building at all times.

·New
Faculty: We are pleased to
welcome several new teachers to Vestal this year:

Tanya Lee—Ms. Lee
will be returning to Vestal to teach 1st grade. She has most
recently been teaching 1st grade at Kelly School.

Aron Steinke—Mr.
Steinke will be joining us this year to cover Ms. Biello’s maternity leave in 2nd
grade. He has most recently been teaching 2nd-3rd grade
at Trillium Charter School.

Zachary Korth—Mr. Korth will be taking over 7th-8th grade Science instruction this year. Mr. Korth comes to us from the Chicago Public Schools.

Jack Wilkinson—Mr. Wilkinson will be joining us as a full-time Learning Center Teacher. He will be responsible for supporting students in grades 5-8. Mr. Wilkinson comes to us from a middle school in White Salmon, WA.

Erin Fitzpatrick-Bjorn—Ms. Fitzpatrick-Bjorn will be taking over our library this year. She will be here four full days each week and will oversee our library and technology programs. She most recently served as the District Media Coordinator in the Gresham-Barlow School District.

Marian Herrmann—Ms. Herrmann will be taking over our music program this year. She will be here four full days each week and will oversee elementary music education and middle school elective music classes. Ms. Herrmann is returning to Portland from Philadelphia.

So, as you can see, we have
lots to be excited about at Vestal this year!! I encourage you to get involved
with school activities this year—we know that family support is a key to
student success. Should you need anything as the year progresses, please know
that my door is always open…

Connect to Kindergarten!

Fall 2015 Kindergarten Information

If your child will be 5-years-old by September 2015, please consider sending him/her to Vestal for Kindergarten. We will be holding a Kindergarten Connect event for interested families on January 22nd at 5:30 pm. If you are looking for information before that date or will be unable to make that event, please feel free to contact Principal Emily Glasgow (eglasgow@pps.net) for information or to schedule a tour.

PPS Parent Academy

Budget Update

Please read about the Superintendent's Budget Update. This information is available in several languages.

Synergy

New online parent tool

Starting in the 2013-14 school year, PPS families will have access to student progress information in a new online tool called Synergy ParentVUE. ParentVUE will be available in multiple languages and also as a free mobile app.

Families will receive log-in instructions to Synergy ParentVUE and links to online support materials in Fall 2013. For more information, please visit http://synergyspotlight.pps.net

We are an AVID School!

Vestal Calendar

PPS News

The Portland Public Schools Board of Directors approved a resolution which directs Superintendent Carole Smith to develop a two-year phased in plan including the feasibility of lifting the enrollment cap at Benson Polytechnic High School and bring it back to the board by Jan. 1, 2016. The board unanimously approved the resolution, 7-0.

Tom Koehler was elected Chair and Amy Kohnstamm Vice Chair of the Portland School Board at the first meeting of the new board Monday, July 6, 2015. In addition to electing new leadership the school board approved and announced member assignments to new committees.

Superintendent Carole Smith today announced that C.J. Sylvester, Chief of School Modernization, and Jim Owens, Senior Director of the Office of School Modernization, are leaving Portland Public Schools.

Portland Public Schools recognizes the diversity and worth of all individuals and groups and their roles in society. It is the policy of the Portland Public Schools Board of Education that there will be no discrimination or harassment of individuals or groups on the grounds of age, color, creed, disability, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation in any educational programs, activities or employment.